If you’re not eagerly awaiting the arrival of GM’s all-new 1.6 liter turbocharged SIDI Ecotec engine that’s capable of making some serious power while delivering respectable fuel economy, then chances are there may be something seriously wrong with you. Maybe. All we know is the 300 Nm (221 lb.-ft. of torque) and 202 PS (200 hp) four-banger that will first find its way into the Opel Cascada can’t come soon enough to replace several outdated engines in GM’s lineup (we’re looking at you, 1.4 liter LUJ). And complementing the 1.6 liter turbo SIDI launching this April in the Cascada will be the recently-announced all-new 1.6 liter turbo-diesel CDTI engine — whose arrival we’re also eagerly awaiting.
According to an Opel press release, the all-new 1.6 turbo-diesel will commence production at the GM/Opel plant in Szentgotthard (St. Gotthard), Hungary in the spring of 2013. This is the first time Opel and/or GM have provided a timeframe for the rollout of the new diesel mill, which is part of the automakers’ engine overhaul program.
Editor’s note: a previous version of this article reported that the 1.6 liter turbocharged gasoline engine would commence production in the spring of 2013. That is inaccurate, as this engine commenced production at the end of 2012. We thank GM Authority reader Observer7 for setting us straight.
Comments
Is the 1.4 you’re disliking the same 1.4 that is coming in the new Buick Encore? If so, will the 1.6 make it to the Encore and when?
Yupp, the 1.4T — the one that can be found in the Cruze, Sonic, and Encore. It’s not that I dislike the engine… but it sure can be improved upon and is rather archaic in its design (tracing its roots back to the mid-90s).
I am worried abut that factory in Hungary. IBM had a large hard drive factory in Hungary that began production around 1998. The drives were installed in IBM large Power-series servers, but most failed after several weeks of use. It was found that the employees were using gloves that had powder coatings that contaminated the disk surfaces during assembly. It was such a economical loss for IBM that they sold the entire manufacturing rights to Hitachi (and IBM INVENTED the hard drive over fifty years ago!). I know because I helped IBM CE’s replace these drives in the servers I managed. The newer drives are from Hitachi.
So I hope that Opel has better quality control and prevent their Hungarian employees from committing such costly mistakes.
IBM withdrew completely from the production of hard drives, not only from the Hungarian factory. and not because of that factory, but because IBM wanted to get rid of the hard drives business.
The two new engines are exciting to me. That’s a whole lot of good numbers from both engines. I hope the new diesel goes into the Sonic as well.